


boxes

by Sabulum



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: ...ish, Based on a Tumblr Post, Character Study, F/F, Lena Luthor's Boxes, Mind Meld, No Plot/Plotless, Others Mentioned - Freeform, Telepathy, basically a study of Lena's relationships as told through cardboard and mindscapes, don't ask too many questions cuz I PROMISE I do not have answers for you, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:55:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27585751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabulum/pseuds/Sabulum
Summary: Nia had said it might be confusing, trying her best to explain her powers to Kara in less than thirty seconds. Holding Kara’s hand, she’d said the vision might be abstract: a loose interpretation of Lena’s thoughts, shaped by Kara’s presence there. Alex, curt and stiff, had said to expect something intense.Kara had recalled the Black Mercy and nodded.She was braced for the worst. Like Mxy’s tapes, but with Lena evenangrier. Maybe a world where Lena never shot Lex, or where Supergirl was dead. Maybe some freaky nightmare scenario with Godzilla-Lena and skyscrapers made of kryptonite. It could beanything.Brainy, bizarrely, said to expect boxes.She never thought that Brainy’s prediction would turn out to be correct, but, well. She has to give credit where credit is due. Here she is, surrounded by cardboard, impressed.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 13
Kudos: 338





	boxes

**Author's Note:**

> Writer's block is a bitch, so I'm x-posting a drabble for a hit of that sweet sweet dopamine. This is inspired by [this Tumblr ask](https://sapphic-luthor.tumblr.com/post/632520934453018624/ever-since-lena-talked-about-her-boxes-ive), though it lost the plot and kinda just devolved into a character study of Lena Luthor's relationships?
> 
> Also, I dunno what the hell universe this takes place in. It's kind of post-S5, but also I think Crisis is stupid, so it's ignoring all Crisis-related goings-on, and I think that's very sexy of me.
> 
> Originally written on [my Tumblr](http://sabulum-p.tumblr.com/), un-beta-ed, etc.

Nia had said it might be confusing, trying her best to explain her powers to Kara in less than thirty seconds. Holding Kara's hand, she'd said the vision might be abstract: a loose interpretation of Lena's thoughts, shaped by Kara's presence there. Alex, curt and stiff, had said to expect something intense.

Kara had recalled the Black Mercy and nodded.

She was braced for the worst. Like Mxy's tapes, but with Lena even _angrier_. Maybe a world where Lena never shot Lex, or where Supergirl was dead. Maybe some freaky nightmare scenario with Godzilla-Lena and skyscrapers made of kryptonite. It could be _anything_.

Brainy, bizarrely, said to expect boxes.

She never thought that Brainy's prediction would turn out to be correct, but, well. She has to give credit where credit is due. Here she is, surrounded by cardboard, impressed.

The room—Lena's mind? This is all very confusing—is far more utilitarian than Kara had expected. It's wide and low, the drop ceiling interspersed with fluorescent strip lighting, and the polished concrete floors remind her of an art gallery. Most of the floor space is taken up by rows of sleek modern shelves, completely filled with tiny, meticulously organized boxes, labeled in Lena's looping handwriting: Hector. Dr. Stern. Ron from Accounting. Chris from Maintenance.

People, Kara realizes. These are all people that Lena knows.

"Um," Kara tries, glancing around the shelves nervously. "Lena? Are you… here?"

Her voice echoes oddly, filling the space more than acoustics should allow, but there's no response. Just shelves filled with neatly compartmentalized relationships.

"Can you hear me?"

After a few moments of silence, wherein she half-expects Lena to jump out and attack her, Kara realizes that, no, in fact, she's truly alone. She bites her lip, looking around uncertainly. This wasn't part of the plan. She was supposed to find Lena and _talk_ to her. To convince her to leave.

Not… whatever this is.

Is it an invasion of Lena's privacy if she snoops around a metaphysical representation of her brain? It totally is, right?

"I'm gonna… I'm gonna look for you, okay?" Kara offers hesitantly, looking up at the ceiling, which she imagines as the inside of Lena's skull. "Feel free to stop me at any time."

She waits again, giving Lena the chance to respond, then steels herself and moves on.

The first thing that surprises her is the soft pad of her shoes on the floor. She blinks down at her comfortable flats, lifting one foot bemusedly to examine it. In the real world, she'd been wearing her suit, stark against the DEO's white medical beds. Here she's in a soft sweater and button-up combo that reads as entirely unassuming. A quick pat around her head reveals that, yes, her hair is up, too, though her glasses are off. Not entirely Kara Danvers, but mostly.

Her gut clenches when she realizes why: Lena's subconscious doesn't _want_ her to be Supergirl.

She glares at the ceiling. "Really, Lena?"

There is no answer, and Kara frowns as she wanders the rows. As comfortable as Lena has made her out to be, the rest of Lena's mind is short on warmth. Kara is displeased for reasons she can't articulate at being one of the only bright spots in the otherwise cold, clinical room.

The second thing that surprises her: Kara picks up intuitively on the rules here.

On one of the top shelves, in a place of honor, sits a large, wide box labeled "Jess." Its corners are crisp, the box clearly well-made, and its lid is worn as if from repeated opening, but lovingly folded. This is a relationship that Lena values; one that she often rifles through and analyzes. It's obvious.

Nearby, another large box has crashed onto the floor and crumpled horribly in on itself. That one reads "Eve Teschmacher," and it has a large red X stamped on the lid like it's marked for disposal.

"No wonder it's so organized," Kara mutters to herself, trying not to imagine what her own box looks like. "This is all L-Corp, huh?"

And it is. Kara realizes increasingly that it is.

Countless shelves.

Of employees.

_Employees._

Not only does Lena apparently know the names of several _hundred_ of her employees; she also has an entire metaphorical room in her brain dedicated solely to work, and _nothing else_. Kara finds a partition made up wholly of pasted-together calendars. Another is made up of filing cabinets, with one labeled "solar panels (I-IV)" sitting incongruously next to an empty, upturned one labeled "Non Nocere."

Kara throws her hands up in frustration. "Seriously?"

A tiny, rolling cabinet labeled "Supergirl projects" bumps against her shins. It is secured by no less than five locks. Kara kicks it half-way across the room.

"Is there nothing useful in here?" she demands. "Where _are_ you, Lena?"

In the far back corner, the lights start flickering.

Kara freezes, staring intently. "Is that some type of sign?"

One of the lights goes out.

"Guess so," she mutters.

Cautious, Kara approaches this dark corner with a feeling of deep foreboding. The lights seem to dim as she gets closer, the air growing colder around her. The silence grows oppressive. Claustrophobic, even. She counts her breaths and does not look at the shelves pressing close on either side.

In the corner farthest from where she'd arrived is a vast empty space that shouldn't fit in a room this size, a chasm of empty floor-space between it and the shelves. It is piled high with dusty, neglected boxes. Each one is wrapped in layers of thick packing tape, as if to prevent the contents from exploding out—or to keep Lena from opening them. They reek of mildew. It's a veritable dumping ground, boxes in all manner of conditions stacked up against the walls and tumbling over each other haphazardly.

And they all have bold, red X's stamped on their lids.

Resisting the urge to wrap her arms around herself, Kara picks up a small, flat box at the foot of the pile and hunts for a name, recoiling when she reads "Veronica Sinclair."

" _Roulette_?" She almost drops it, swallowing thickly. Placing it back down with all the care of someone handling a bomb, she squints at the rest of the pile suspiciously, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell. What is this, the dumping ground of Lena's enemies? People who've betrayed her?

Will Kara find her own name here?

Her eyes skim over a slew of names she doesn't recognize, boxes small and large, before landing on a big one high atop the pile. It's filled almost to bursting, and just looking at it sparks an ache deep in Kara's chest, like whatever pain it holds can't be fully contained. It's sturdy, like Jess' box, and Kara frowns curiously at the careful, neat rows of packing tape holding it shut, pressed down smooth like Lena took her time.

This doesn't look like it belongs to one of Lena's enemies. It looks _important_.

So…?

Kara has to rotate it to find the name, and to do that she has to half-climb a stack of boxes, putting her knee atop "Jill" and stabbing someone named "Kevin Oh" with her elbow, but she does so with single-minded determination and a muttered apology. She has to. Something draws her forward.

The moment she touches bowed cardboard, the pain of it overwhelms her, seeping through her fingertips like a draft through old floorboards, dragging her down into an all-too-familiar pit of grief and despair.

Kara bites her lip as she turns it around, dreading what the name might be. It's surprisingly heavy.

On its front, penned in a reverent hand, is "Jack."

She understands, then. Inhaling sharply, she scrambles off the pile and searches it with wide eyes:

A small bundle sits at the very top, glowing beneath the fluorescents; more tape than cardboard, it looks as if it's been soaked through and then wrapped frantically in an effort to preserve it. It reads "Mother" in a shaky, childish hand.

An extremely battered box has fallen off the pile and spilled its contents all over the floor, photos and papers and hiking boots tumbling out, along with a well-loved henley. The "Andrea Rojas" on it comes as a surprise. The box beside it labeled "James Olsen" is less so.

A tiny, but carefully-packaged box reads "Red Daughter," and feels like a question. Kara glances away from it quickly.

Biting her lip, Kara searches for the inevitable "Luthor" and finds it first in a large box covered in patched-up holes. The "Lionel Luthor" has been slashed out, an ugly "Father" scrawled underneath so aggressively that Kara can almost hear the biting sarcasm of an illegitimate child.

Beside it, a box as tall as Kara has been half-shredded, furiously taped, stamped twice for disposal, then _shot_ , agony pouring off of it so intensely that Kara has to look away before she finds Lex's name.

To the left of the pile, closed but not yet taped, is a box that has been worried over endlessly. "Lillian Luthor" is stamped with at least a dozen X's, labeled and crossed out and labeled again, over and over and over. The cardboard is flimsy, and it reeks of almost-but-not-quite abandonment—like a half-assed birthday gift, or an invitation to a party that has already passed. Just looking at it makes Kara feel insignificant.

"Oh, Lena," she murmurs.

Kara takes a step back, just to fully appreciate the scale of what's in front of her. All these people that Lena has lost, and tried to forget.

If this were Kara's head, would the pile be even larger? An entire warehouse filled with tiny boxes—dead Kryptonians that she didn't even know? Would they even have names? Would they be charred at the edges like she pulled them out of a bonfire, or would they be old and worn from the passage of time? At the very least, she thinks, her own boxes would be better maintained, pulled out occasionally so she could trace her fingers over the shape of them, instead of this dusty mausoleum.

Sighing, Kara scans one last time for her own name, to no avail. She chooses to take that as a good sign. But she does find Winn: a small box with neat tape lines, half-buried in the pile, and it makes her smile. "Miss you, buddy."

As she moves away, she nudges Lillian's box with her toe, trying to edge it closer to the heap. It barely moves.

If only it were so easy to change Lena's mind.

The rows and rows of L-Corp shelves feel oppressive, now, and Kara moves through them quickly. Countless tiny boxes, and so few large ones. No sign of Kara's own name, or Alex, or Brainy, or Nia. No sign of Lena herself in the sleek, professional rows. There's nothing helpful here at all.

Until Kara finds a door that she's _sure_ wasn't there before.

She pauses mid-step, staring at the innocuous wood frame. "That's kind of dramatic, don't you think?" she asks the room at large.

Silence.

"Okay, okay, I'm going."

—

If the main room with all its shelves and concrete was the hard-edged CEO, then _this_ is the Lena that Kara knows. _Knew_ , she corrects herself.

Softer, smaller, and infinitely warmer.

The carpet is plush and clean, a coffee table piled high with boxes such as "hobbies" and "favorite movies," next to her office's white couch. On one cushion is a small, but well-worn box that simply reads "comforts." On the arm is a matchbox labeled "safety." A damaged, but reinforced box on the floor reads "Sam," with a smaller box beside it, almost touching, reading "Ruby," and a curio cabinet against the wall makes up "National City," its shelves laden with photos and keepsakes. There is no "Metropolis."

Kara hesitates, but finally steps inside what she can only think of as Lena's heart. She feels like an intruder here. Like this is a place she's been exiled from.

"Lena?"

Her voice echoes oddly in this room, too, and there's an answering hum, like the room itself is vibrating in response. It makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

The door disappears behind her.

Fingers twitching, Kara peers around nervously. There's a kitchen unnervingly identical to Kara's own, and a lumpy pile in one corner covered by a moving blanket—

There. That.

Kara stares at the pile for a long moment, searching its squared-off corners, biting her lip. It all but begs to be uncovered. Kara doesn't want to. Despite knowing that she's meant to look, that something in Lena's subconscious has led her here—what if it's not what she wants? What if she doesn't find any familiar names? What if they no longer belong here?

Only one way to find out.

She squares her shoulders and pulls the blanket off.

The boxes are all a respectable size, she notices first. At least as important as Jess, if not Jack. Their corners are crumpled like they've been tossed around the back of a moving van, and their tops are haphazardly taped, but the edges are peeled up like Lena was on the verge of opening them before she changed her mind. "Alex Danvers" is the largest, but "Nia Nal," " ~~Hank~~ J'onn J'onnz" and "Brainiac 5″ are still substantial.

Kara exhales deeply in relief at the sight of them. They're still here. She still has a chance.

Wait—

She frowns, re-reading the names. "Where am _I_?"

"Over here."

Kara starts, whirls, and comes face-to-face with Lena, standing behind her in a previously unoccupied space. Expression blank, Lena gestures over her shoulder at a likewise previously-unoccupied corner.

"Take a look," she says.

Kara blinks at her, then blinks behind her at… another door?

"I don't understand."

Lena raises an imperious eyebrow. "What?" She turns around to glance at it, sighs, and rubs her temples. "That's not supposed to be there," she mutters to herself. "Hold on."

Is… is she blushing?

While Kara watches on bemusedly, Lena flicks her hand, turning the cheerful white door into a mountain of taped-up boxes. Trust Lena to have this whole metaphysical vision thing figured out already. Kara can just make out a few labels—"lunch dates" and "articles" and "safety (II)"—before Lena scowls impatiently and flicks her hand again, turning the boxes into—

Kara's heart sinks. "Oh."

It's a mess.

A large box labeled "Supergirl" has been torn apart, its contents strewn across the floor: her suit, her cape, the anti-kryptonite armor; sheaves of files, many with coffee stains; dog-eared copies of CatCo magazine; and far, far too many empty whiskey bottles. Kara flinches back instinctively from a hunk of glowing kryptonite, but feels no accompanying swell of nausea, except at Lena's knowing scoff. Beside it, a folder labeled "Reign" is covered in conspicuous blood-stains.

"Nothing here will hurt you," Lena says curtly. "It wouldn't."

Kara glances at her, then back at the tangled mess of metaphors.

"That's not true," she mutters.

What she sees hurts her plenty.

The "Supergirl" box has a single, stark X on one of its dangling flaps, disowning her simply. The "Kara" box is covered in them. Like Lillian's but worse, every inch stamped and then slashed out in increasingly violent strokes, like Lena kept trying to carve Kara out of her life, growing angrier and angrier each time she failed. It's covered in tape, too; dozens of layers, sliced through messily. Now it sits closed but not sealed, the flaps tucked into each other with incongruous care.

And—it's _big_. As tall as Kara herself, like Lex's box, and almost as badly damaged. Only—

Only like Jack's and Sam's and Jess', it's strong. Stronger than any of the Luthors' boxes. So strong that someone must've taken a _hatchet_ to it to cause this much damage. It was sturdy, once, and stable. The cardboard is thick and durable. But now the edges are splitting, the bottom doesn't sit quite right and it's full of hastily-patched holes.

Watching her silently, Lena finally says, "It's been through a lot. My relationship with you."

Kara can only nod, unable to find words suitable for what she and Lena have done to each other.

"I think I'm the one who took the axe to it." Lena crosses her arms, eyeing the box dispassionately, betrayed by the slightest trembling of her lips. "I wanted so badly to tear it apart, like the other one. God, I _tried_. But…" She gestures from the Supergirl box, in pieces, to its mangled-but-intact counterpart. "You can see how well that turned out."

Because the holes have all been patched. The edges have been shored up. The X's are all crossed out, and the box is still here, in this cozy room made up of all the things that Lena loves.

"Are you…?" Kara trails off uncertainly, and Lena huffs what might be a laugh.

"I don't think it's worth the effort it would take to destroy it," she admits. "All I did in trying was hurt us both."

Drawn forward, Kara glances at Lena and receives a slight nod, pressing a hand gently to the cardboard. The sleeve of a sweatshirt pokes out one corner as if the contents refuse to be fully contained; it sings of muted warmth. The cardboard seems warm, too, and only warms further at Kara's touch. An ache creeps through her fingertips, lingering like an old friend, winding its way lazily up her arm and all the way to her chest, almost pleasant—until it suddenly constricts.

It hurts. Kara is surprised how much it hurts.

It's worse than Jack. Jack, who _died_. This is a loss so vast that it's almost crippling. Jagged grief cuts into Kara, with betrayal poured agonizingly into the wound; fury wars with guilt and regret until they choke her, a snarled-up ball that can't be cut through, can't be evicted, because it's all wrapped up in a stubborn, undying _love_. It's regret and apology and longing, longing, longing.

Desperate to fix it, she surges forward with both hands like she can force the box's edges back together, pushing with all her weight. But it's no use. She has no powers here, and its contents are unbelievably heavy. It doesn't budge.

Whatever's in there, Lena's heart deems it too important to tamper with.

Kara swallows thickly, pulling her hands away so that the only grief remaining is her own. "It's, uh… it's sturdy."

"Well, _someone_ worked really hard to build it." The corner of Lena's mouth twitches, her eyes fixed squarely on Kara. "I'm pretty sure the damn thing is nailed down. I can't get it out of this room."

A knot of emotion clogs Kara's throat. She steps back and runs a hand through her hair, resigned to the work of untangling it.

"We really need to talk, huh?"

It's an understatement so extreme as to be almost insulting.

"Yeah, we do." Lena offers her a tiny smile. After a moment, she gestures around at her prison of metaphor: a trap perpetuated by Lena's own mind. "Do you think you can get me out of this place? So we can talk?"

Kara looks around, remembering all the things Nia said about how _complex_ and _difficult_ this would be. How Lena would probably fight her, and Kara would have to convince her that this vision wasn't worthwhile.

Kara nods. "If you'll let me."

"Yeah." Lena's expression goes soft. "I think I can manage that."


End file.
